A Classic Country Lullabye & Lord Byron Bedtime Stories
by Miss Meggie
Summary: The Kree Stone eats Jemma alive or does it? Either way Ward must learn how to function as a single father. for WardSimmonSummer Prompts: Classic and Library - Sequel to The Battle Cry Of Rome (Ward)-


"What do you mean a fucking rock ate my wife?" He screams at Coulson. At the increase in volume Roman wails from Skye's arms. "Sorry buddy, my anger is abrasive. How can a rock eat someone?" he asked Coulson more calmly.

Fitz stepped up to answer. "I think it would be more accurate to say the stone has some form of consciousness and claimed Jemma as it's own, a part of its being."

"Make it unclaim her! Make it puke her the fuck up now!" He orders trying very hard to ignore the urge to intimidate Fitz into action. Jemma wouldn't appreciate it.

"I'm working on it believe me Ward. We believe the stone was meant to be used as a weapon against human-alien hybrids meant to destroy them, I believe the Chitari virus pathogen's Jem was exposed too changed her in some unknowable way that alerted the stone, not knowing the damage left in its pathogenic wake we're afraid it'd go as deep as her DNA and could have theoretically transferred to Rome as well."

He scrubs a hand down his face before flopping tiredly down into an uncomfortable office chair. "Great! So, it wants to eat my baby too…"

"That's where you come in." Fitz says and pauses in thought. "Even with being all the horrible things you are, you're still our best shot at keeping Rome safe while off base. Jem and I, we talked about it… even with what you did to Bobbi, Jemma knew you never could or would harm Roman. You love them. Come hell or high water you love them, just like I do. I need to focus on Jem and with that thing being so unstable this is no place for her boy. This is my call Ward; please don't make me regret it." Fitz says looking at him with serious eyes.

"So wait, let me make sure I understand this you all want me to just take him and go? You're going to just let me take him and just hope I don't fall off the map?"

"Yes, we are but you're not going to fall off the map are you? Because Simmons is still in limbo and for as long as she is you will stay as tied to my apron string as I say and we both know it." Coulson countered.

Grant has a retort to that but curtails it and leans forward in his seat "Fine what are my Parameters? Can I hold him please? Or is Skye going to taunt me with him the entire briefing?"

"Stay off the grid, May will be your contact. Use a civilian alias and stay low profile I mean it Ward. With Hydra and Anti SHIELD factions we can't be too careful." Coulson says leaning heavily on the desk trying to be intimidating. He fails miserably. Coulson has the intimidation factor of a kitten.

"I'm Hydra's very last head; mark me off your threat list." He smirked. "Now, give me my son."

"I don't have to give him to you until the last possible moment." Skye whines petulantly.

"Yes, you do. If you want him to adjust to my presence it's best to do it now in the presence of people he knows and trusts." He grins victoriously up at her as she begrudgingly hands over his boy. "Hiya Big Man, Whatcha doin?"

The little boy eyes him a minute. "I see you got Mama's "New discovery" face. The boy then grabs for the wedding ring looped around his neck.

"Mama?"

"She'll be back." He whispers pressing a quick kiss to the center of his forehead.

After some serious squirming he lets Roman down during the brief and he is everywhere into everything. He crawls across the floor to Fitz and steals Coulson's pen only to be stopped from chewing it by Fitz's quick hands.

"How do I make him be still?" Grant asks suddenly a bit frightened.

"You don't." May says flatly leveling him with a cocky smirk,

"I need to do Dad research before this OP I know nothing about babies."

May actually laughs. "He is so your kid. No amount of recon will help you."

-/-/-/-

After a few days they set them loose.

Skye had taught him the basics but that's all. Google is own personal library. Little does he know Roman is not a good sleeper. They book some major miles in his 1953 Chevy truck. Fitz had told him on one of the update calls, (Nothing yet) that Jemma sang to him a lot.

So he sings along with the scratchy sounding classic country station. It barely comes in on the dirt roads of their tiny Texas town of Poteet.

He goes through Rhinestone Cowboy and back up Main Street. Timber (I'm falling in love) and Kiss Angel Good Morning gets them around the block… He hates Johnny Cash so instead he shuts off the radio just sings pleadingly "Roman Ward go to sleepy, Sleep, Sleep," The little brat just giggles at him. He flips the radio back on and makes another go around their block.

His soft little snores fill the cab and Grant turns for home. He sits in the truck and listens to Don Williams sing about what he believed as it mixed with the sound of Roman breathing.

For some reason he misses Jemma unspeakably in that moment and stuffs down the urge to cry.

He googles "Are babies supposed to snore?" before he forgets and then "Are one year olds still considered babies?"

-/-/-

Out of utter boredom he takes Roman, (or as he now affectionately calls him. "Chubba") to Mommy and me classes at the local public library.

As he takes in the stares of the varied stares of the mothers, Curious, attracted, disgust, sadness, he leans down and whispers into Roman's ear. "You think they're on to us Chub? What do they mean I am not a mommy?" he jokes ducking his head to plant a kiss on the boy's fat cheek,

"Sinful…" one very repressed woman mutters.

Before he can stop himself he takes on a feminine lisp. "Love is never a sin dear, didn't the bible teach that? My partner Leopold could surely educate you on the inaccuracies of the bible." He scoops up the baby. "Come on Gemini let's leave the bigots to their shitty class."

"Don't ever tell your mother I did that, or that I used Fitz as my partner." He orders Rome as he finds the art of war and flops down into a chair to read to the boy.

"And if you ever have a sister Gemini is good or nah?" Roman gives him Fitz's, "You're an imbecile." Look.

-/-/-/=

A cold dread fills him up bit by bit with each passing month as they settle in more and more. He now feels like Roman's father. He knows all his little tricks. Roman loves books, the pretty girl at the library, Macaroni, classic cartoons, Grant's guitar and trying to ride the dog they rescued. The Border collie was named Boo by Roman.

He calls Grant Dad, not Daddy.

The moment he realizes they have settled and become their own family he lays on the couch watching some shooting show with shitty marksman Chubba sleeping his chest. He's so happy but someone is missing…He changes his train of thought and pats Chub's diapered butt and goes back to his gun drivel.

On Roman's second birthday he accepts that Jemma is dead. The fucking stone will never return her and he is sure the team shares his opinion as he reads their expression as Roman blows out the candles on his cake.

-/-

There are times when he has to channel his inner Jemma, during the taxing and crazy adventure that is raising a little boy. When they start potty training, he has to get creative because sinking the Cheerios is not cutting it. He has Fitz rig up a water proof, light up, target with points for aim that add up to the "Pee Pee Prize Points."

He's the only kid Grant knows who needs to be entertained to piss but then again he doesn't know any other kids.

The first time he drops a Tonka truck on his foot and says "Fuck!" it takes everything in him not to laugh and remain stern.

"Roman Douglas Ward, gentlemen don't use words like that. We say Ouch!"

He points accusingly at Grant. "Point taken I'll work on it." He allows as he squats down to kiss the invisible boo, boo marring his fat, dirty foot. "No one can know I did that." Rome just smiles.

"Tanks Dad!"

"No problem, son."

-/-

Grant has taken to reading Roman poetry, to put him to sleep. There was some study according to Skye.

"They name the before me, a knell to mine ear….Buddy I picked this one because Mama loved Byron but fuck if it doesn't make me want to read the old bus manuals rather than this." He muttered.

"It's lovely in a melancholy way, but you always were more a closet Neruda man." He hears over his shoulder and his head whips around and there she is bright and lively.

They must make some kind of picture because she says "I'm real." Her eyes fill with tears. "I missed so much."

"What? How? The rock it…"

"Captured me, intending to make me it's weapon, I was given every answer to all earthly questions, and shown countless worlds, but the only thing to be understood across all of them is love, it's universal, older than time and our universe itself, nothing filled the holes the two of you would have left behind. It released me. It expects me to disable Skye but that is another fight for another day." She shrugs as she shoves off the door to step into the dimly lit room.

"You were gone so long." He says just above a whisper. Secretly, he hopes this isn't some twisted, dreamt up apparition of the woman he loves.

"Time doesn't pass at all in the stone. It was as if I blinked and knew everything. When I went looking for Romy the second they let me out quarantine Skye cried." She took a few steps closer. "So, do think there's any luck that he still remembers me or fancies me?" She asks and as if she can read his mind, she threads her fingers through this hair quickly before drawing back. As if the action was improper instead of the most soothed he's felt in nearly two years. She really is, very real. Thank all the gods. (Including Thor with his ugly hammer.)

He snaps back to himself when he catches her tenderly curious stare, "I have pictures of you up but scent is the strongest memory trigger… the stone it didn't weaponized you against him did it?" He asked suddenly wary.

No, the Chiari virus only made me an applicable choice for the stone, not Rome. I'm his mother harming goes against the laws of nature and my morals. He's safe Grant, but the fact that he is your foremost thought tells me I was right." She gives him one of those bright unguarded smiles that hit him warmly in the solar plexus.

"About?" he asked. He stood and handed a very sleepy Roman to Jemma while still standing in the boy's eye line.

"That the things you did were out of loyalty not allegiance and despite… Oh heavens he's gotten quite tall and heavy in my absence." She hitched him higher on her hip. She presses a kiss into his hair and inhales his scent.

He watches her relax instantly. "Despite What Jemma?"

"Despite pretending otherwise some of that loyalty belonged to me. I wasn't sure you loved me enough to abandon whatever mission of vengeance I know you were on but, I knew I'd earned your loyalty and I knew you loved Roman. Everyone fought me on it but I knew you loved him, I knew you'd what to give him the classic fairytale upbringing you never got. I was right." She sways side to side with boy. A well-practiced "Mom Move" that never worked for him but seemed to be lulling Roman into comforted drowsiness easily enough.

"Please don't thank me for being a good father that surprised look on Coulson's face always makes me sick."

"Never love, I shall just enjoy my rightness. Do tell me about the life you've built."

"How'd you find us?"

"Fitz says you're quiet reclusive but keep in contact with him. He gave me a key. Your awareness is losing its edge love," She teased gently and his blood warms.

"Two year olds are tiring Jem. He never stops. I'm a ranch hand a few towns over and he loves books, Tom & Jerry, Boo, Legos, and for some odd reason pro wrestling. He laughs when people get hit I'm afraid he inherited some of my sadism. He's a flirt; He hates cheerios, but loves fruit loops and blueberry yogurt sometimes combined. Um, it's best to just give him the last pop tart, and concede that Big Bird is the best Sesame Street character. Oh and he loves to say fuck. That's my fault sorry."

Her laugh is still the clearest, most joyous sound. Next to Roman's hard won "Love you Dad's." He could grow so entirely used to their peace and unfettered happiness.

"Do you like your life?" She asks.

He smiles slowly. "I do."

Roman wakes a bit realizing he's in different hands. He raises his head off Jemma's shoulder looking for Grant. "Right here Chubba. Still here Buddy. Always here." He soothes making sure the boy sees him. He reaches over and pets down his hair.

Jemma rubs Roman's back. "I'm glad you're happy." She whispered with an odd look in her eyes.

"He'll be a Mama's boy again in no time Jem." He says and for half a second he can see the woman he loves the one who let only him see her insecurities. The only one she trusted to hold her together.

"You know for me knowing everything, I thought it would be the biggest payoff but it's not…it's disappointing. The thing that rock couldn't tell me? It couldn't tell me the future. It couldn't tell me who Roman Ward would become or if you were capable of change. I needed to know, so I have a proposal." She confides.

"Okay?"

"I'd rather not be a weapon for any species in any world."

"Pacifist." He teases.

"Sadomasochist." She retorts flippantly. "I'd just like to be his mother and if there's such a thing as classic happy endings for me? I want mine to happen with you." She confesses.

"I'd really love that Jemma." He can't resist, he leans in and kisses her chastely. She lets him kiss her for a second, and then she kisses back before backing away from him.

"We're talking about the torturing Bobbi thing, at length Grant."

He shrugs. "I'll still take it baby, so are you thinking science teacher?"

When she rolls her eyes and grins at him he thinks just maybe, joy and happy endings are within his grasp.

AN: I own nothing the music belongs to the prospective writers and artists I own none of them. The poetry line is from Lord Byron's When We Two Parted. I do not own it. I own nothing AOS related. I do own Roman. If you enjoyed this please tell me, Thanks! -MM


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